AMA - Personal Trainer

[AndreHimself]

Do you have a degree/certs or are you all self-taught. If not, do you plan on getting it in the future? Do you train men and women the same? What's your max squat/bench/deadlift? Have you done a powerlifting meet? If yes, what's your total?

Thank you for doing this!

 

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[AustinS28]

Acl is loose and has tear and meniscus re-torn. Dr. would like me to strengthen the muscles to support the instability but it hits that sharp pain point pretty quick.

What exercises are you doing? It's pretty common to have knee pain if the joint is suffering from instability due to imbalanced musculature (weak inflexible hamstrings and dominant quads in a lot of gym goers). Anyways leg presses, Id start with the sled alone and never go below 15 reps at this point. Glute bridges, wall squats with the stability ball, hamstring curls. It's usually recommended to avoid exercises that cause pain so I wouldn't do anything that causes that sharp pain. You can also feel pretty safe if your exercise routine isn't making the injury worse. You're having a problem if the pain gets worse between workouts, but if it's the same or better, everything you're doing is probably not impacting the recovery of the injured areas.

 

[AustinS28]

You said "anything"..... What is the best lead generation website/app/platform on the Internet for personal trainers? Do you pay for leads? If so how much? What is your average stick rate with a client? How many prospects only come to one appointment never to return?

Never paid for a lead before.

Best tool is findyourtrainer.com but hasn't helped me much. They take a commission so 20% of what the client pays and they want the client to pay through the site.

I can get you actual percentages later if I go over my books. My conversion and stick rate is high but I don't want to make numbers up.

 

[Guest3722A]

What exercises are you doing? It's pretty common to have knee pain if the joint is suffering from instability due to imbalanced musculature (weak inflexible hamstrings and dominant quads in a lot of gym goers). Anyways leg presses, Id start with the sled alone and never go below 15 reps at this point. Glute bridges, wall squats with the stability ball, hamstring curls. It's usually recommended to avoid exercises that cause pain so I wouldn't do anything that causes that sharp pain. You can also feel pretty safe if your exercise routine isn't making the injury worse. You're having a problem if the pain gets worse between workouts, but if it's the same or better, everything you're doing is probably not impacting the recovery of the injured areas.

As far as exercise, walking is it right now. My situation is unique to normal sport related acl meniscus surgery. My injury was caused from a 4" steel mesh hose that broke apart and was under extreme pressure to fill over 40,000 lbs of liquid CO2 into a tanker. Pressure kept coming after the malfunction and the hose beat the absolute hell outta me.

After my first surgery and physical therapy, my dr. ordered workout was 6 days a week. Aerobic anaerobic pattern.

For Legs:

Leg press - Warm up with 4 45s 12-15 reps, add 2 more/10-12 reps, add 2/ 8-10 reps, add 2/6-8 reps. Rest for only 1 minute between sets (I'd time it) 10 45s. before injury I was doing 14. Couldn't get back to that again after 15 weeks of consistent lifting

Leg curl - (Had to push through pain here) Can't remember the weight selection but Id put the pin in a higher weight and repped until pain, Dropped one plate and repped higher if possible, dropped one plate again and repped higher if possible continuing for 5 sets

Calf raises - 1 warm up w/1 45 then 4-5 sets with 2. No change in weight

Prior to injury I did lunges


Aerobic day would be stationary bike. HIIT. 1 minute warmup. 1 minute everything I had in me. 1 minute just keeping the pedals turning while catching my breath. 1 minute everything I had. Repeat for 20-25 minutes.

Not sure if the tear was in the donor acl yet at this point, but it was loose - then I went to see another doctor to see exactly why my knee was loose and that doctor really messed me up with his examination. That's where I'm at now.
------------------------------------------------

After the re-injury, I can't even climb a step now without bringing some kind of momentum/compensation around the quads. So now for exercise, I walk. Tried getting back in the gym again but had a lot of pain.

My situation is more complicated than this, but just wanted to give an idea of where I was and where I am. To give an example of a complication, I had another doctor order an mri and more physical therapy and the physical therapist could feel the movements of my joints/popping while doing wall squats w/stability ball. Physical therapy was discontinued. Doctor ordered surgery. I'm not ready for another surgery just yet.

so, what I'm hoping to do is get my fat a$$ back in shape!! (get back to 220 range if possible) But I don't have the knowledge to do it around what I'm dealing with and Google is useless because there's too many "me too's" out there to weed through.

 

[Kingmaker]

When I bench I feel like my front delts get more work than pecs, what am I doing wrong form-wise? I have long arms @ 6ft tall, if that helps.

 

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[Alan LT]

Which do you think is more effective?
Short intense workouts or longer workouts with medium effort?

Also, any tips that you could give to a skinny guy trying to build more muscle.

 

[AustinS28]

Thank you very much for your time and advice. I appreciate it. Rep transferred and I'll be starting up exactly what you described this week. I'll report back when I have some results. Thanks again

My pleasure, and thank you. Please let me know how this goes.

 

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[IrishSpring600]

Man I sure hope that butt isn't lifting off the bench...would be hugely disappoint. Judging by the other aspects of the form, good bench.

 

[IrishSpring600]

If you want to be great at anything, medium effort usually leads to medium or mediocre results. I've had my best results with high intensity workouts, low volume, training each muscle group 2-3x a week on a minimum. So keeping workouts to the basics, 2-3 exercises that work per body part, example would be picking squats instead of leg extensions, so doing those money maker exercises for a few heavy sets a few times a week. I usually rotate lifts, so for legs day 1, the primary exercise may be squats, day 2, front squats, day 3 paused squats for high reps....It is always different but it always is at a high intensity.

Food is your friend, bump your calories, you can't grow without a surplus of calories. Don't eat like a pig, but going 500 over maintenance levels everyday, you will put on size, its how the body works. Don't rush it. If you think you eat a lot now, you probably don't. I always notice that small guys say "oh, but I eat so much," well, maybe for you, but you're not eating enough to grow because you're not growing, and there is no way you could eat as much as me 230lbs and not be getting bigger unless you had some genetic disorder.

I second this. Absolutely can't believe people who say they eat and eat and are yet 130lbs. Eating to me is GOMAD + a box of pizza every day. That and Layne Norton's PHAT bumped me from 160 to 180 when I was a teen, and made my strength go up.

 

[AustinS28]

Man I sure hope that butt isn't lifting off the bench...would be hugely disappoint. Judging by the other aspects of the form, good bench.

I have some better videos from May 2014 of competition lifts 535/400/615 raw, won the junior class @227 lbs. but didn't feel like cutting and lifted 242.

 

[Josh Pennie]

Hey Austin!

Question on workouts. I've been working out obsessively since feb. Originally my goal was to cut from 25% BF down to around 12%. I achieved that and am now looking to put on around 20lbs of lean muscle over the next year. I was working out 6 times per week hitting each muscle group around 2x. However this last month I've moved down to 5x per week hitting each group once but lifting as heavy as I can for 4 sets of 5.
I've been reading different things about the best routine for gaining size and mass with some saying hitting each group twice per week and others saying once. From your experience which is most efficient? I find that if I'm hitting twice I have 0 DOMs. But going heavy I'm usually soar the next day. Is that a sign of more efficient training? Or is my body still adapting to the new routine?

Thanks for the thread

 

[Longinus]

Hi Austin,

Thanks for the great information you provide here.

I'm working out for 6+ years right now. Currently bulking, but I focus on strength with the well known 5/3/1 program. For some reason I'm strong, but I don't look that way. For example, my max:

bench: 120 kg
squat: 180 kg
deadlift: 250 kg (going for 280 kg this season)

I'm 92 kg right now (like last year). I was 83 kg in summer, and that's my problem. When I'm cutting, a huge part of my muscles disappear. I know this is normal, but meanwhile my bodyfat stays. On the photo, I was around 11% BF and my abs were barely visible. I worked out 5-6 times a week.

Is it my bodytype or am I doing something wrong here?

It frustrates me in a way that I almost give up on looking lean and want to bulk heavy until I'm 160 kg and F*ck up my joints while deadlifting 400+ kg during strongman contests.

 

[marklov]

Delete

 

[McFirewavesJr]

Good to see a fellow fitness hustler. Keep it up.

Sent from my LG-D852G using Tapatalk

 

[Guest3722A]

Glad you found something.

Just curious, when you signed up for the site and tracked your food, did you use a food scale to weigh everything for accuracy?

Second, I'm unfamiliar with the slow carb diet, but if your drastically reduced your carb intake the majority of those 13lbs is water. However, that isn't a bad thing, happens when most people start a fat loss diet. Keep plugging along and you'll get there.

No food scale. I just selected the items they suggested and the site calculated the numbers for me. I even adjusted up against the suggestions because I wanted to see what it would take to get to maintenance. My intake was low. In trying to fit this all in reason the only thing I came up with was that I went through some severe trauma and I'm thinking my system just reacted.

The slow carb diet, from what I understand, is comprised of only foods that don't promote fat storage at all. Low glycemic index. Avoid all white carbs. Stick as close to organic as possible. No fruit. Grass fed meat when possible. Don't drink calories. But I am doing one glass of dry red wine almost every night which is the only drinkable calories allowed. Green tea almost daily. And a multi vitamin mineral. One cheat day so the body doesn't adjust.

A day of meals for me right now is something like 3 large cage free organic eggs w omega 3 + 3 pieces of Canadian bacon. Hummus as a snack or natural peanut butter or some cashews or pecans. Tuna out of the can with organic lentil soup. And about an 11 oz sirloin with mushrooms and mixed vegetables.

The water was just starting to go too but this last cheat day stopped it I think. I can absolutely feel the fat going away and can feel much more muscle now. My 38 waist jeans I'm swimming in too - so liking that seeing that I have a whole closet of 34s.

Ferriss says that it's fat that this diet burns and although skeptical, I'm kinda starting to believe it because I'm seeing it.

Here's one of the links

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2012/07/12/how-to-lose-100-pounds/

 

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[StompingAcorns]

Hi Austin,
I wanted to send you an update. I've been lifting about 5 weeks now, and I've already seen a significant improvement in my back soreness. I'm amazed to see significant progress in a relatively short period of time. My knees are a little cranky now and then, but no sharp pain and I'm feeling more confident that they will come along, too. So thanks again for your encouragement!

The biggest obstacle I've had with the lifting is significant fatigue. At first, I was doing lifting 2xweek (6-15 rep range, multiple sets, to fatigue, and she always varies the exercises as well as whether we're reverse pyramiding or alternating or whatever) and doing interval training between (30 min walk/run) with 1 day off. The weight exercises are always major movements, e.g., we never do curls or tricep extensions or leg extensions, but we will do dips, chins, squats in addition to the more typical sled, bench press, etc. I continued the 2xweek lifting but stopped doing the interval training and started brisk walking for 30 min on my non-lifting days and allowing myself more than 1 day off a week. The fatigue is some better, but the morning after weights I still can't get out of bed and am pretty tired all day. I will keep slogging through it and hope it gets better in the next few weeks.

One question I am curious about, just because I like to "know how things work" - from my reading, it seems reasonable to expect a beginning female weight lifter can easily gain 10-12 lb of muscle the first year. Do you agree? And do you know, does that tend to be mostly linear or more exponential, or is there an adjustment period, after which the gaining starts? I.e., can I expect roughly a 1 lb gain per month? And how much muscle does a typical body carry, anyway, so would 10 lbs be (roughly) 10% or 5% or 1% of total body muscle mass?

 

[SeanF]

I've been a lot more active on the boards recently and truly didn't realize what a wealth of information and people we have over here. I am also in a transitional phase where I am doing a lot of remodeling of my current business. I am 24 and will be 25 on the 28th of this month. I have 1 year of experience as a self-employed personal trainer with a growing business and over 10 years of gym experience, 4 years actually making money from it.

I don't see too many self-employed trainers on the site and thought I could help people grow their business. I'd also be open to answer general fitness questions, but routine creation is definitely something that can be discussed on a different platform since it's very detailed and in-depth.

This is me. I power lift and I am not as lean currently as I am in the below transformations, but I am quite a bit stronger.

My current website - http://www.trainwitha.com
Website under construction - http://manhattantrainer.com

Hey. That's one impressive transformation! (fist-pump emoticon!). I'm about to start a freeletics programme on Sunday.
I will do it just on Sundays, as monday wednesday thursday are my gym days.
Should my diet be kept the same with regards to prots/carbs etc or do i need to change it up now I'll be doing more calisthenics?

 

[AustinS28]

No food scale. I just selected the items they suggested and the site calculated the numbers for me. I even adjusted up against the suggestions because I wanted to see what it would take to get to maintenance. My intake was low. In trying to fit this all in reason the only thing I came up with was that I went through some severe trauma and I'm thinking my system just reacted.

The slow carb diet, from what I understand, is comprised of only foods that don't promote fat storage at all. Low glycemic index. Avoid all white carbs. Stick as close to organic as possible. No fruit. Grass fed meat when possible. Don't drink calories. But I am doing one glass of dry red wine almost every night which is the only drinkable calories allowed. Green tea almost daily. And a multi vitamin mineral. One cheat day so the body doesn't adjust.

A day of meals for me right now is something like 3 large cage free organic eggs w omega 3 + 3 pieces of Canadian bacon. Hummus as a snack or natural peanut butter or some cashews or pecans. Tuna out of the can with organic lentil soup. And about an 11 oz sirloin with mushrooms and mixed vegetables.

The water was just starting to go too but this last cheat day stopped it I think. I can absolutely feel the fat going away and can feel much more muscle now. My 38 waist jeans I'm swimming in too - so liking that seeing that I have a whole closet of 34s.

Ferriss says that it's fat that this diet burns and although skeptical, I'm kinda starting to believe it because I'm seeing it.

Here's one of the links

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2012/07/12/how-to-lose-100-pounds/

Sorry for my absence. I've been super busy with work and projects and didn't want to begin replying to things if it were to only leave a half assed reply. Anyways, I'm snowed in and taking a break from creating blog content.

You need a food scale.

Let me explain.

Fitday.com can't weigh and measure your food, it only can tell you how many calories are in weighed and measured foods. If I add one piece of chicken to my foodlog and one piece is defaulted to 6 oz on fitday, and in reality my piece was 12, I just ate double the calories I thought I was eating. The same goes for every piece of food entering my mouth.

We are so calculated and accurate on everything we find important, business, finances etc. That leads to the best results. The same goes for food. Its tax season, you wouldn't just guess how many dollars you can write-off for your business. You want to find every penny possible so you can save the most money.

That said, you can definitely lose weight without counting calories and macros. It may not be the best way, but it may be the most sustainable for long term results.

I'm interested to see how the Tim Ferris thing works. I do not like a lot of his fitness information. He grossly exaggerates results on his Facebook page.

 

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[AustinS28]

Hey. That's one impressive transformation! (fist-pump emoticon!). I'm about to start a freeletics programme on Sunday.
I will do it just on Sundays, as monday wednesday thursday are my gym days.
Should my diet be kept the same with regards to prots/carbs etc or do i need to change it up now I'll be doing more calisthenics?

Thanks! I would keep your diet the same. I like to change one variable at a time. It's easier to find out what works and what doesn't when you do things that way.

 

[oimate]

Hey Austin,

Started with a personal trainer last week as I am finally committed to getting into shape and losing the moobs and beer belly lol

I have been consistently going to the gym for the past year and have lost about 23 pounds in that time.

I am male, currently 16.2 stone/275 pounds and 6"0 tall (182cm) and have always been broad shouldered

Having realised my mistake by mostly doing cardio based excerise in that time I am now doing more weight/resistance based activities hence the personal trainer for a couple of month just for that extra motivation and also to learn the machines/free weights and the proper form etc.

I have reached a bit of a plateau regarding weight loss and whilst I am confident that progress will be made on muscle gain etc, I only lost 1 pound last week and I was good regarding diet etc.

Can you offer any advice on food intake as I consume approx 1300 calories per day and having read into it etc I believe I should be eating more-so my body doesnt try and keep hold of the fat as it probably thinks its in starvation mode. I do however struggle to eat anymore.

Would taking a good whey protein isolate shake twice a day be a good subsitute for feeding my body so it doesnt store the fat?

Anyone else been in this situation and successfully overcame it? What was your process?

 

[Tomekmeister]

Hello Austin!
I'm 17 years old and I've been working out for like 2 years now (only gym). I started at 60kg and 180cm and right now I'm at 80kg and 184cm with about 14-15% body fat. Never in my life I thought I'll need to lose weight, so I only know how to gain one. I'm more of a torso type of guy, that means my back / chest are huge compared to my arms and shoulders, my legs are fine. I'm afraid that if I'll start losing weight, my arms will get smaller and you have no idea how hard it for me to make them not look so small. I tried out almost every technique that I found on the internet - heavy weights, light weights, long rests, short rests, drop sets, doing them 2x a week, changing excercises and many many more, but they still won't grow (fast enough).

My training schedule:
Day 1: Biceps / Triceps
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Rest day
Day 4: Back
Day 5: Chest / Shoulders
Day 6: Rest day
Day 7: Rest day

Question 1:
How would you improve it so I have better results? Arms and shoulders are the high priority ones. I can hit the gym max 4 times a week.

Question 2:
How to lose weight without losing gains (or the lowest amount possible)? Somewhere I heard losing 0.5kg per week is okay. My goal is to cut to like 10-12% BF. And how long would the process take?

Question 3:
Besides gym I'm really into street workout, but I never knew how to combine both. Is it a good idea to do it like: Week 1 - gym, week 2 - street workout (repeat)?

I know this is a lot to ask and I will understand if you won't answer them. Thank you for your time reading this

 

[Deleted20833]

What's the key to MAINTAINING 10% BF. I've been 10% BF before and maintained for like 3 months lol

 

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[Tomekmeister]

Question 1:
I'd actually, considering your experience level, probably program you like this.

Day 1: Push (Chest/Shoulders/Arms)
Day 2: Posterior Focused Legs (Deadlifts, Hams, Glutes)
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Pull (Back/Arms/Posterior Delts)
Day 5: Anterior Legs (Squats Variations, Quads, Glutes and Hams again but lighter)
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

That would be a really good plan if not the thing I didn't mention in my post. I can't do hams AT ALL. This problem occured since my first day at the gym, I can't really do anything about it. Whenever I tried to do excercise for hams, I suffered a really big pain in tendon at the back side of my knee. The only excercise I do to improve them is deadlift, as nothing hurts while doing it, even when I go heavy.

If I have 2 arms days, do I go hard on both? Or maybe a little lighter on both? I mostly did 3 excercises and 3 sets for each biceps and triceps while having 1 arms day.

I've never really used push & pull program so let me ask you something - how not to sit in the gym for 2 hours for example on Day 1?

Thank you for responding, your advices are very helpful

 

[GetRichODT]

As a 6'6 255# guy, I've always struggled with leaning out. I was really skinny as a kid but bulked up through sheer will and eating.

Can you make any diet suggestions? I've tried slow carb, but find that i then start dropping a lot of weight. I'd like to maintain weight and lean out if at all possible.

 

[Amy Spencer]

Hey, I know this was a while ago, but for a trainer branching into online personal training (or just sending workouts/meal plans) home with a client - do recommend doing everything through email (for like personalizing training) or taking advantage of software like FitFerret.com ?

 

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[MetalGear]

I am working on dropping my body fat by eliminating carbs high on the glycemic index. I am slowly replacing them with vegetables. In the mean time does anyone have any tips on managing the headaches that come with eliminating these high glycemic carbs?